Can we stop lung cancer before it becomes too aggressive?
Cancer types:
Lung cancer
Project period:
–
Research institute:
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
Award amount:
£274,736
Location:
France
Dr Fernandez-Cuesta and her team at IARC-WHO, located in France wants to find a way to stop an aggressive form of lung cancer – known as small-cell lung cancer - before it appears. They have discovered an intermediate stage in tumour development that could be the key to understanding this type of lung cancer and hope that by better understanding this intermediate stage they will find clues for small-cell lung cancer prevention.
Why is this research needed?
Dr Fernandez-Cuesta and her team at IARC-WHO, located in France wants to find a way to stop an aggressive form of lung cancer – known as small-cell lung cancer - before it appears. They have discovered an intermediate stage in tumour development that could be the key to understanding this type of lung cancer and hope that by better understanding this intermediate stage they will find clues for small-cell lung cancer prevention.
This project aims to better understand the earliest changes that drive the development of one of the deadliest cancers. This knowledge could help detect this cancer at an early stage, inform better prevention approaches, and support the development of more effective screening and treatment strategies.
What is the science behind this project?
In a recent project supported by Worldwide Cancer Research, Dr Fernandez-Cuesta and her team of Curestarters made a groundbreaking discovery. They found a whole new entity of lung cancer called supra-carcinoids which looks like a low-grade tumour but has the poor outlook of a high-grade tumour. This shows that the traditional way doctors diagnose these lung tumours by looking at them under a microscope doesn't always predict how aggressive they will be.
Low-grade lung carcinoids can actually turn into supra-carcinoids. So now, Dr Fernandez-Cuesta boldly predicts that it doesn’t stop there and that supra-carcinoids have the ability to turn into small-cell lung cancer. This slow-motion system would help better understand the origin of small-cell lung cancer.
In this project the team will be investigating what makes a supra-carcinoid become a small-cell lung cancer and finding out how to intercept this progression. They will use a combination of techniques including powerful AI to analyse medical images and genomic data.
If their idea works, this innovative research could redefine our understanding of how lung cancers emerge and could allow us to stop it before they reach their most dangerous form.
What difference could this project make to patients in the future?
This project will provide critical insights into the key steps of how lung cancer progresses from low to a devastating high grade. One day we hope to find a way of preventing this progression which would dramatically improve survival rates for patients.
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